Bad Blood: Rich Clementi and Melvin Guillard

Oct 9, 2007 10:40 PM John Chandler

A lot of people know about the history and bad blood between Rich Clementi and Melvin Guillard, who are both set to meet at UFC 79 in December. However now that the matchup has been revealed, I’ve been getting a few emails asking about what happened between the two. I’ll try and give it a shot…

Basically Clementi and Guillard are former training partners. It’s been said before that Clementi was Guillard’s mentor of sorts and basically got him known by some of the bigger promotions in MMA, although I’m not sure if that is completely true.

Clementi has apparently had Guillard’s number for years in and outside of the gym. Clementi has said in the past that he has easily controlled Guillard during training sessions. It’s also been documented that Clementi once knocked Guillard out in a kickboxing match as well.

Things came to a head during the hours leading into The Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale. Clementi and Guillard exchanged a heated set of emails that can be found here.

According to reports, Guillard walked over, Clementi put out his hand for a shake and asked, “What’s up with those e-mails?” Apparently, before Clementi could finish, Guillard punched him in the face but didn’t noticeably hurt him. The two fighters squared off, but nothing happened, and it eventually got broken up.

Guillard then apparently threatened to shoot Clementi, stating, “Next time I’ll hit you with my pistol,” which consequently lead to him being tossed out of the fights.

Rumors floated around after the incident that the two were trying to get the UFC to set up an official bout between them. It look eight months but it finally happened…